"Ingmar Bergman's films utterly depressing" -- Ingmar Bergman

me too, & though we probably won't see something as amazing and insane as the Bergman box for a while, directors with 10 or fewer films could be manageable. they already have the Tati box, they could do a Tarkovsky box but Kino has Nostalghia and they just put out The Sacrifice (would be perfectly happy with a nice Mirror disc no matter who puts it out). Bresson is doable.

I read rumors (on ILX?) that there's supposed to be a big Kiarostami box from CC this year. Maybe that'll turn out just to be the Koker Trilogy.

It all comes down to who holds the rights. Bergman and Kurosawa boxes happened because most of their films are owned by single entities who'll mega-license.

It's been floated on other forums that the next collections could be (in addition to Kiarostami) Ozu, Fassbinder, or even a retooled upgrade of Kurosawa, now that some more of his films are in play.

there's at least a dozen Fassbinder movies that have never had a region 1 release afaik

I could almost see them doing a series of Fassbinder sets ala EMI's Bowie vinyl boxes.

There's a Tarkovsky box in the UK with all 7 films. The BFI Ozu and Kurosawa releases were annoyingly incomplete though.

Tarkovsky box (by Curzon/Artificial Eye) is sold out at source and (maybe by accident) includes a terrible transfer of Stalker. Criterion did a stand-alone Stalker which was much better. Agree that it all comes down to who owns the rights but Criterion have also done a restoration of Andrei Rublev recently so maybe the rights could be acquired idk.

there've been individual BR releases of everything(?) that was in the dvd box that i bought 5 or 6 years ago, i'd assumed they were all upgrades. and they are all available everywhere (seemingly)

BR box set, £40, amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sculpting-Time-Tarkovsky-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B074ZXQ226/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1547554845&sr=1-1&keywords=Andrei+Tarkovsky

oh, i see now that Ivan, Solaris and Stalker individual BRs are criterion editions and the others are from that box, Artificial Eye versions.

oh ok, this is the one I was thinking of (which I have), no idea how the content differs (if at all) from your one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrei-Tarkovsky-Sculpting-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B071L2QVY8/

xp

All of the Artificial Eye Tarkovsky BRs are meant to be 'remastered'. I bought the stand alone Nostalgia disc for £6 in Fopp - it is a significant upgrade on their previous, abysmal DVD, but still doesn't look that sparkling. Anagram is right that the Criterion Stalker - and Solaris - BRS available in the UK are much superior, and I'm guessing that their Andrei Rublev will be as well (I'm not even sure which cut of Rublev AE used for their disc).

Funnily enough I've been looking into this recently (this should really be on a Tarkovsky thread, but since we're here...) Criterion just did a new BR restoration of Andrei Rublev which contains both the 185m (Tarkovsky-approved) cut and a longer 205m cut, but it's only been released in the US (so Region 1 only) and is unlikely to be released in the UK since it contains a scene of animal cruelty which contravenes UK film legislation. (I assume all currently available UK versions don't contain this scene.) Criterion won't release the uncut version in the UK.

*cut* version, I meant to say.

The BBFC are notoriously inconsistent when it comes to animal cruelty in films - generally, the artier the movie, the more lenient they are, so they might well pass the full version of Rublev uncut. As I understand it, Tarkovsky himself came to prefer the slightly shorter version, tho it is good to be offered the choice.

so Linn Ullmann, who's written several novels, has finally penned one based on her relationship with her famous parents. She was profiled in the NYT Magazine last week.

noted here:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6151-january-books

Reading the Linn Ullmann book now, it's good. Lotsa detail about IB's personal habits, daily life at the house on Fåro, and the complicated dynamics of the Bergman/Ullmann family. Passages where she's trying to interview her dad as he's entering his dotage near the end are naturally pretty sad. Not yet clear on why this is called a novel instead of a straight-up memoir with names omitted.

RIP Bibi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UMbvohZ_iY

:-(

otherwise fine NY Times obit has a mistake in it:

In addition to winning four Guldbagge Awards, the Swedish equivalent of the Oscar, she was named best actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958 for “Nara Livet” (“Brink of Life”), sharing the award with three co-stars, and best actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1963 for the title role in “Alskarinnan” (“The Mistress”). Paradoxically (and surprisingly, to many), neither was a Bergman film.

Brink of Life is a Bergman film, and a great one at that. Not sure of its availability outside the Criterion boxset.

It's still second tier Bergman -- the script is worse than the direction -- but I've realized I've been wrong about Autumn Sonata because I've denied how closely it cuts to the bone. I know way too many mothers and daughters in this same cycle of rage and affection.

I've started working my way again through Bergman chronologically, I've only gotten to Port of Call so far. Can't wait til I get to the later stuff

I'm working my way through the big criterion collection box. Still only about a quarter of the way through. Trying to keep track of my Bergman power rankings as I proceed. There have been some nice surprises so far and a couple duds. A whole bunch of ones I've never seen before too.

I saw The Virgin Spring yesterday at sort of a sparsely attended screening. even knowing the movie going in I underestimated how unbelievably harrowing and intense it is on a big screen and with other people, who were all either dead silent or openly weeping.

that's the kind of screening I want to attend

I just realized I've never seen any of his films on the big screen. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify that someday.

To me "showing cycles of rage and affection" is something that makes it 1st tier. Can't say I know what you mean on the direction, probably because I don't quite know how to evaluate that stuff.

The staging and framing are often A+; the writing too on-the-nose (probably one offscreen death too many).

I reckon he takes quite a lot of risks with that script, hence maybe why you feel it's on-the-nose.

It does feel like Bergman is doing a session of psychoanalysis and ends up breaking people lol.

was Summer With Monika really the film that made US critics/audiences recognize that Sweden had a more sexually liberated culture? if so, that’s interesting

I loved Smiles of a Summer Night

That was a new one to me when I got the criterion set, and it's probably my favorite find, absolutely delightful.

his best comedy - his only good comedy? the ones I've seen (Waiting Women and All These Women) are terrible

Have never seen The Devils's Eye, is that a bad comedy too?

I'd like to hear any review of The Devil's Eye, one of the very few classic period Bergmans I've not seen.

HIs birthday today - 101

wasn't expecting to love Wild Strawberries so much, seeing it again after decades

have been re-reading the thread. I guess you could call Wild Strawberries ‘life-affirming’. I just really liked how much of a fantasia it was, mixing absurd real events, dreams, and memories in the protagonist’s path from withdrawal to engagement. Victor Sjöström was great in it

thought To Joy was one of the strangest and most interesting of his early films

I enjoyed seeing the 60s Bergman films that are supposed to form a trilogy - Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence.

According to Bergman “these three films deal with reduction: Through a Glass Darkly – conquered certainty; Winter Light – penetrated certainty; The Silence – God's silence, the negative imprint.”

They are very dark (The Silence also has a lot of humor), but they are all fantastic

thought The Silence did seem somewhat Fellini-esque as flappy bird mentioned above, mostly the sections with the the child

Those are coming up soon in my Bergman box. I haven't seen them in about 15 years, but I remember them all being brutally bleak.

they all seem to be focused on the acknowledgement of the silence of god, and the choices that the characters then have about how to live their lives: Through a Glass Darkly ultimately concluding that god is love amid the scenes of hopelessness; Winter Light, in which rational discussions of love for and belief in god and belief in human relationships reveal them to be problematic, with some hope ultimately offered for faith; The Silence, even further diminishing our confidence in faith but also maybe elevating it, offering of a huge ray of light with the character of Johan1

Ended up skipping over Persona, Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, and Cries and Whispers for the moment and watching Scenes from a Marriage, the theatrical version. The first time I saw it was as a teenager. It feels now like it was of its time, in a good way

Gotta do the long version, it's so good

thinking I should, maybe will wait until I work my way through the rest of his films though. It does bring up for me the question of whether to watch the mini-series version or theatrical version of Fanny and Alexander

seeing this again a lot of its appeal is in the attractiveness of the two main characters, and I can now better relate to their worry about the reality of love, about the possibility of not having loved or been loved enough

It definitely hit me harder on my recent viewing than the previous one some 15 years ago. A big part of it is just their wonderful acting and all the long, long takes.

I prefer the theatrical F&A, it flows better, but both are worth watching.

I probably say it a couple times a year on this board, but you NEED to watch the full cut of F&A.

criterion channel does have both

really looking forward to seeing Persona again

Cries and Whisper is intense, it feels like a culmination of his surreal psychosexual dramas